Topic: Wii Shop Channel shutting down - first real death of digital content?

[ejamer]

Saw an article on NintendoLife talking about how the Wii Shop Channel is being prepped for shut down, and it got me thinking: I've still got lots of WiiWare and Virtual Console games left to play, but it sounds like those will be inaccessible before long. I mean, as long as you've got them saved on a working console you are ok, but there will be no way to re-download them once the servers are shut off.


Is this the first time we've seen a death of significant amounts of digital content?
Are there any games from the Wii Shop Channel you missed out, but still want to try?
How come Nintendo never packaged all the Art Style games onto a physical collection, similar to the Bit.Trip series?




There were a lot of digital games I purchased and enjoyed, and some of those games aren't available elsewhere to my knowledge. That makes me sad. It also makes me happy to have a shelf filled with physical games that are easily transferred and will be continually accessible (as long as the discs themselves don't deteriorate).

[NWR_insanolord]

I know the original Xbox had downloadable games that became inaccessible when they shut down Xbox Live for that platform, but I don't believe it had anywhere near as many titles as the Wii shop had.

As for me, I bought a ridiculous amount of stuff from the Wii shop over its lifetime that's all still safe and sound, at least for the time being, on my Wii U, and I don't think there's anything I don't have that I want.

[Stratos]

Aw nuts. I had hoped it would stick around for a few extra years. Once I finished school I had planed on going on a binge of old games I missed, as there were a handful of WiiWare games I meant to grab.


Do we have a date yet or is this just rumbling in the industry?

[NWR_insanolord]

Do we have a date yet or is this just rumbling in the industry?

January 2019.

[pokepal148]

The Wii has been hacked to hell and back. Almost everything that was available on the Wii Shop Channel can be found in less legitimate places and then loaded on to the Wii from there.

[Shaymin]

The Xbox Live Indies Channel from the 360 is going down sometime next week (land of Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World), so it wouldn't be the first - but it is the first time an entire platform is going down.

[Stratos]

Do we have a date yet or is this just rumbling in the industry?

January 2019.

Oh good! I'll have plenty of time to pick up whatever I am missing from the shop.

[BranDonk Kong]

Hooray for piracy! Softmod your Wii and you'll have no probably re-installing any game that you've ever purchased from the shop.

[ejamer]

The Wii has been hacked to hell and back. Almost everything that was available on the Wii Shop Channel can be found in less legitimate places and then loaded on to the Wii from there.

That isn't news - you've been able to pirate games for a long time, and emulation was "a thing" long before Wii even released. Yet Virtual Console still has some demand. There are people who prefer not going to "less legitimate places" to get the games they want to play...

[Stratos]

Yeah, my Wii's are hacked. So I never converted either of them when I got a Wii U. Debating if I should do this now or not.


And I prefer to support smaller devs, though with how backwards some of the practices Nintendo had on the system, there is a chance devs would never see the money from any twilight sales.

[Luigi Dude]

Well I'm pretty sure I've already downloaded everything I wanted off the Wii Shop Channel so it's not that big a deal right now.  But the thing I worry about is what happens if my Wii dies a few years later or my SD memory card becomes corrupt someday?  Does Nintendo have any kind of record of these purchases and would reinstall the games if I sent my Wii in for repairs?  Would I at least get a discount on redownloading the games that I lost if these same games are available on the Switch in the future?

I guess all the NES, SNES and N64 purchases aren't too much to worry about since the Wii U got most of the Wii's selection so I imagine the Switch will eventually get them.  The Switch is getting more Neo Geo games then the Wii had so that's covered.  The Wii U is still getting most of the TurboGrafx selection on the Virtual Console as well so those games have a good chance of appearing on Switch.  When it comes to Wiiware I got Mega Man 9 and 10, Cave Story, Castlevania Rebirth and Contra Rebirth.  If Capcom ever wises up give the Switch the 2nd Mega Man Legacy Collection 9+10 will be covered and Cave Story is already on the Switch.  Hopefully with Bomberman R success on the Switch they'll release all 3 Rebirth games on the Switch in the future as well.

So basically it's the Genesis and Mega Master system catalog that worries me since Sega never bothered to support the Wii U.  Of course the 3DS got many of them redone in 3D and had some Game Gear support early on, so maybe the Switch might get Genesis and Master System support this time around.  If that happens then at least most of the games I got on the Wii will still be available to re-download.

That's still the thing I loved about the Virtual Console was all the classic games across all the 8-16 bit systems I always wanted to play and was finally able to experience.  Of course if my Wii is to eventually die I could always resort to getting a modified Wii to pirate everything I bought.  Normally I'm against piracy but really, I literally spent hundreds if not over a thousand dollars on buying all the games I did on the Shop channel.  If Nintendo isn't going help out in any future loses then I'd say piracy is more then justified to get all the games I payed money for back.

[Stratos]

Looks like they will cut off point purchases in March of next year. So stock up now if you do plan to make a final splurge.

[pokepal148]

The Wii Virtual Console is literally the only place where the Neo Geo AVS Version of Ironclad/Chotetsu Brikin'ger was officially released. That game was basically given a CD soundtrack and released on the Neo Geo CD instead. People knew there was an AVS version but it was never released (or leaked like Star Fox 2) before it came out on the Virtual Console as an import title.

It's a really good game although I suspect it will come to Switch at some point.

[Wanderlei]

I had no idea. I though it went away when online play for Wii games went away. I got all my games I bought on SD card backed up.

[Order.RSS]

At least they're giving a decent heads up for this, 6 months left to add points and another year to download things. What are some must-plays that are exclusive to the system? That Castlevania game I think, the first FAST Racing title...?

I know the original Xbox had downloadable games that became inaccessible when they shut down Xbox Live for that platform, but I don't believe it had anywhere near as many titles as the Wii shop had.

Yeah it had like 25~30 games I think, and a lot of the stuff on there were DLC expansion packs, some of which  also received disc releases if I'm not mistaken.

[ShyGuy]

Is the Wii eShop the largest cache of legal classic games? Maybe GOG is bigger, but for consoles, Wii eShop has to be the biggest. It makes me want to go back and pick up some of the harder to find classics.

Nintendo, Capcom, Sega and Namco put out there popular games in collections and other online stores all the time, but the obscure stuff is probably worth getting.

My Wii disc drive died a long time ago and I did a full transfer over to my WiiU, so I would be using the virtual Wii on that.

[Khushrenada]

There are also Rock Band songs to acquire. Earlier this year, I used the Wii Shop to add $100 to my account and buy a bunch of songs I always meant to add. There are still more I would download so I'll probably go through it again. Sadly, some songs have become unavailable in the Rock Band store due to licencing agreements already but when the Wii Ship channel shuts its doors, that will be the end of adding songs to one's memory/playlist for a Nintendo system.

[ejamer]

I had no idea. I though it went away when online play for Wii games went away. I got all my games I bought on SD card backed up.

Quick heads-up about that: backing games up on SD card is great, but will only work with your specific Wii console. The SD card won't work with any other piece of hardware - not even a different Wii console.


Good old Nintendo.

[BranDonk Kong]

Yes it will... as in your PC etc. But no, you can't copy the games to another console (without modding).

[Ian Sane]

I think I have $7 or so on my account that I still need to spend.  I think that's the amount - it would be buy a TG16 game anyway.  Though I believe Rondo of Blood as an import is more than the typical TG16 price.  So I have to remember to spend this before March.

This is going to be interesting because the chief argument made in favour of physical media is that with downloads you don't really own ****.  I think for the really pro-download crowd this idea of a shop disappearing and games going poof if your console breaks or games being completely unavailable for legitimate purchase, new or used, was like some far off date that wasn't worth thinking about.  Alternatively there may have been some assumption that after enough time passed you wouldn't care.  Well this concept isn't theory anymore.  It's going to happen and people are going to be affected by it and we'll see how they react.  While I think the instant gratification of digital download is strong enough that clearly it's the future, I wonder if there will some increased numbers in the pro-physical crowd after it has affected people firsthand.

[ThePerm]

That's why long terms universal platform accounts are nice. I've got games on Steam I can't use yet.

[ejamer]

That's why long terms universal platform accounts are nice. I've got games on Steam I can't use yet.

Or even PSN, which has been supported across multiple platforms with decent user rights for owned content...


But either platform could potentially pull the plug at any time, for almost any reason, and you'd be in the same situation. And at some point, that's almost certainly going to happen when it's no longer profitable to maintain the old data.


*shrug*  It is what it is.  Physical content has limitations too. Nothing lasts forever (although I'm very happy to have a large physical Wii collection that should last for a long long time yet).

[Stratos]

If you treat physical media right it should last your lifetime. Just have to be careful. Also, at least with physical I could go buy another (albeit for a steep price if rare) and enjoy the game. With this digital stuff the only way to enjoy it after the shop goes down is via piracy.

[NWR_insanolord]

If you take care of your system, digital purchases can last a long time too. And physical games may last a while, but you're missing out on any patches or downloadable content if the servers have shut down. With Wii games that's not as much of an issue, but anything else recent could be hurt a lot of it, especially on Switch where many games only include part of them on the card and require you to download the rest.

[UncleBob]

If you take care of your system, digital purchases can last a long time too. And physical games may last a while, but you're missing out on any patches or downloadable content if the servers have shut down. With Wii games that's not as much of an issue, but anything else recent could be hurt a lot of it, especially on Switch where many games only include part of them on the card and require you to download the rest.

I took care of my Wii and it died during its own lifetime. Lost all my saves and had to re-download every digital title (and there was a lot of them).